Brian Aldiss has a mother complex.There's no other way to explain his novel FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND. In it, Joe Bodenland, a man from the 21st century slips back in time to the 19th century; specifically, to Switzerland, where he first meets Victor Frankenstein and his monster and then, after another displacement, Mary Shelley and her illustrious companions. He becomes obsessed with thwarting first Frankenstein, and then his monsters.There's some good stuff along the way. Aldiss' portraits of Percy Shelley and Lord Byron are colourful and convincing. The narrator's various meditations on the scientific quest to learn more and improve on nature are occasionally though-provoking, raising interesting questions about, for instance, whether rationality has really done more for human dignity than religion, even when the points they make are debatable (did religion really protect the basic dignity of every human being more than reason-based capitalism? It seems unlikely). Aldiss' depiction of the monster and its mate (yes, Frankenstein Makes Woman in this pastiche) are pretty good, too.But there's little sense to it all. The narrator is obsessed with destroying the monster and his mate, even though they seem to deserve it little enough. Bodenland himself becomes a bit of a monster in his murderous quest. There are one too many time-slips, and nothing is really explained or tied up.Most egregious of all, the narrator sleeps with Mary Shelley, for little reason other than that he is there, and he makes her happy by telling her that he is a time traveller who can vouch for the eventual success of her novel. It seems highly out of character from what I've read of Mary Shelley, who was no libertine, and certainly the fact that the narrator is presented as an old man, a grandfather, at the end of his career, makes the liaison that much stranger. I think Aldiss just wanted to fantasise about making love to Mary Shelley, whom he has often described as the mother of his genre, and to hell with sense or plot coherence. Having written this bit of slash fic, he then built a fairly shoddy structure around it, and then, being of a thoughtful bent of mind, fleshed it out a bit with philosophical ramblings.The end result is less than a novel, not quite an essay. An alogether vexatious and disappointing exercise. Aldiss is one of the more interesting and original literary SF writers, and one with a keen engagement with the genre's nature and history. I expected much more from his take on what he holds to be one of the first, if not the first, SF novel.
This is the book that the Roger Corman movie was (loosely) based on.I actually thought the film, although definitely a 'B-movie' did a better job in some respects of delineating the parallels between the sci-fi scenario that Aldiss sets up and the classic story of Frankenstein.In the 21st century, nuclear war in space has ruptured the space-time continuum, causing bizarre 'time-slips.' Caught in one of these, an influential man finds himself 200 years in the past - but a past where it seems that the fictional story of Frankenstein is fact. We meet our infamous scientist, and our protagonist is soon caught up in trying to save an innocent woman from being executed for a killing committed by the monster.Another 'slip' occurs, and our protagonist now finds himself some months later, in what may or may not be a different reality again, hanging out with Byron, Shelley and Mary Godwin (soon-to-be Mary Shelley).Reality seems to be unraveling. Our protagonist becomes somewhat obsessed with tracking down the monster in his 21st-century car and killing it.But is the real problem that humanity, in whatever century one may be in, seeks out forbidden and dangerous knowledge, as the original Frankenstein illustrates? Or is it the human hatred of and violence toward anything different and unknown?This short, philosophical novel is really Aldiss' musings on these issues. It's OK, but perhaps could have been better executed. I liked how, in the movie, the protagonist was actually a scientist responsible for the device which caused the timeslips, setting up a nice parallel between him and Dr. Frankenstein. In the book, he's just a random guy, it seems.
What do You think about Frankenstein Unbound (2005)?
I teach Frankenstein in college classes quite often, and I love books in various genres that reenvision the Romantic poets, so I figured this would be right up my alley. But the whole thing seems to exist to show that its protagonist, 21st century man Joe Bodenland, is the only sane one of the lot (except Mary!), fictional or historical, as both Victor Frankenstein and his creature are portrayed as essentially evil and insane. Byron and Shelley, likewise, are shadows of their real selves, leaving Mary Shelley open to a torrid affair with Bodenland. While Mary Shelley's Romantic-era prose comes across as OTT sometimes, Aldiss kicks it up another couple of notches, while not making use of the potential depth of the characters. The thing I enjoyed most (from my 2014 perspective) was seeing Aldiss's 1975 imaging of where we would be in 2020.
—Catherine Siemann
No me gusto. Comenzo muy prometedor, con ciencia ficcion y traslados temporales. Pero si lo Frankensteniano hubiese quedado en metafora y centrado en otro tipo de historia lo habria apreciado mejor. *Spoiler* Fue una sorpresa que realmente se encontrara con Victor Frankenstein, incluso prometia, pero cuando llego con Mary Shelley... ¿Que se fumo el autor? ¿Esta tan obsesionado con Mary que sus sueños humedos eran con ella? Esto es casi un Fanfic de Frankenstein que mientras avanzaba se hacia mas aburrido y confuso. No me gusto.
—Doremili
Tal como é comum nas obras Aldiss: ideias brilhantes, com execução mediana. Conflitos humanos transferidos para a superfície lunar; diluição das linhas entre realidade e ficção; ruptura do tecido espaço-temporal, resultando em Deslocamentos Temporais aleatórios, e o conceito dos objectos mais banais, desde relógios a carros, serem movidos a urânio (esta última uma ideia particularmente aterrador), são elementos com forte potencial, infelizmente o resto da história deixa um pouco a desejar, em especial certos factores da interacção do viajante com personagens históricas.Reconheço que os diálogos do protagonista com Lord Byron e Percy Shelley estiveram bons, respeitando, acima de tudo, as obras de ambos e o modo como elas se inseriram nas mudanças culturais da Revolução Industrial. Agora, não havia necessidade nenhuma dele se enrolar com Mary Shelley. Toda essa parte parece-me gratuita e desprovida de contexto narrativo.Já agora, não me lixem, um carro a passear pela Suíça de 1816 devia ter dado muito mais escarcéu.Além de um leque de boa ideias, salvou-o o respeito pela simbologia de "Frankenstein" e o modo como explorou essa temática.
—Vitor Frazão
